


Litost

by anatomical_heart



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Angst, Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Extended Scene, Gen, Graphic Description, Hallucinations, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Male Character, Panic Attacks, Triggers, references to murder, references to violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 09:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anatomical_heart/pseuds/anatomical_heart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuing from "Trou Normand." We didn't see Will leave Hannibal's home that night. This is what happened after dinner, from Will's point of view. </p><p>While this is labeled "Gen," I'm think Hannigram shippers can find something to enjoy in here as well. </p><p>Please look at the tags for trigger warnings pertaining to violence, mental health issues, etc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Litost

Will found himself in Dr. Lecter’s sitting room, seated and held gently in place by an armchair that undoubtedly cost more than every item of clothing he owned put together. (Including the tux he’d been forced to purchase years ago, hanging dejected and alone at the back of his closet protected by the flimsy, now-dust-covered plastic garment bag he’d picked it up in from the dry-cleaning place a stone’s throw away from the academy that closed down over a year ago.) Lips pursing, he squared his shoulders and leaned further into the chair, testing its firmness and its give. After almost a full minute, he contented himself with the fact that for all the armchair was worth, it still wasn’t as comfortable as the old, sagging-too-low-to-the-ground couch sitting in Will’s living room, smelling of wet dog and sweat (and, after a few years, Virginia) that he’d inherited from his father. He turned these things over in his head while looking down into the glass of home-brewed beer he hadn’t touched all through dinner. He vaguely remembered Hannibal setting it in front of him, next to his water glass, before bringing out the main course of the meal, but Will was too busy sizing up Freddie Lounds and trying to figure out a way to distract her attention away from Abigail to notice. In fact, Will had hardly tasted the food at all after everything that had happened over the course of the last twenty-four hours. 

He took an experimental sip of his beer, enjoying the cold press of glass to his bottom lip more than the drink itself. That small sensation seemed to steady him and bring him back to the moment: Feet planted firmly on the polished wooden floor of Hannibal’s sitting room, his weight supported by the stylish and expensive armchair that provided a certain _I have no idea_ that tied the room together and was supposed to convey an elegance and a sophistication - the way only useless things could do - to anyone who entered the room. Will took another sip of beer, but regretted it instantly. He bit back the strong swirl of hops that seemed to leech the strength from the tendons in his jaw, and he sucked in a breath through his teeth; the bitterness was sudden and overwhelming. Pulling his lips into his mouth, Will set the glass of beer down on the end table beside him. He chided himself and cast his eyes down to the floor, feeling shame start to gnaw at his ankles; noticing and dwelling on such material differences between himself and Dr. Lecter scraped along the inside of his stomach like a dull knife, and made him feel very small - reminding him so much of being six, wearing too-large clothes from St. Vincent de Paul and hoping his father’s haul from the lake was bigger this time. Blinking rapidly, Will shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts; the backs of his palms itched with something he couldn’t name as memories crawled up his legs like mud and swamp water from the bayou. Irritated, edging toward uncomfortable, he ran a hand over his face, and physically lowered his shoulders down from around his ears, shoulder blades coming to rest against the chair once again; he needed to relax.

Hannibal’s home was mercifully quiet, now that Freddie Lounds had left for the evening. _Jesus,_ Will thought to himself as he let out a rough breath at the meal they had just shared - astonished and utterly annoyed that he, Dr. Lecter, Abigail, and the reporter in question _could_ sit down to a meal together and entertain civil conversation. Well. Relatively speaking, of course, as Freddie Lounds was hardly civil. But, Will observed, when vying for something she truly wanted, she knew enough to make gestures of (albeit grudging) politeness - all of which still left a sour taste in Will’s mouth. 

And with that, he decided it was the last time he was going to think about Freddie Lounds for the rest of the evening.

With a sigh, Will pulled his arms back into his lap and shifted position again, trying to compel himself to feel at ease.

His ears perked up at the soft sound of running water in the kitchen where Hannibal and Abigail were doing the dishes together. He smiled at that. Then let out something that wasn’t-entirely a laugh, though it had disbelief and amusement clinging to it. A kind of hoarse, desperate, almost-bark as Hannibal’s words from earlier rose up inside his own throat: _We are her fathers, now._

The full measure of that sentiment felt lost on Will. At once, he accepted it the way one snatches something out of greed or starvation: Thoughtlessly, utterly unconcerned with the possible consequences. But in almost the same instant, he also found himself rejecting it: He was not responsible for the mess Abigail and Hannibal had wrought themselves; years of training and experience rebelled against his lying to protect them. 

But... when Will’s eyes settled upon Abigail’s face, he held onto that word like a lifeline - _family;_ it’s what he felt all the way down to his marrow. No one - _no one_ \- could convince him what he felt wasn’t true.

Still. He shied away from it all as _family_ rang hollow and didn’t quite fit; they weren’t anything like a family.

And yet...

Each of them were bound to the other, now, through secrets and through blood. And as much as he loathed to admit it, that had always been his experience of family: Secrets and blood. Because there was no question in his mind, now, that he would keep Abigail’s secret. And he would do everything in his power to protect her.

_Everything in his power._

It was the first chance he’d been able to sit alone with himself and that piece of shattering knowledge. And he felt it like a punch to the gut. The finality of it all so much like rusted nails through a coffin as soon as he had pulled the trigger that killed her father.

Will reached up and pressed cold fingers to his lips. What had happened to him? To his life? Where had all these seemingly incongruous, impossible pieces come from? Sharp-edged and dangerous and suddenly everywhere.

He didn’t want to think on the answers to those questions. Point of fact, he didn’t want to _think_ at all. 

So he closed his eyes and took in what he hoped would be a deep and steadying breath. Wondered if he could remember how to relax. But after a moment, he felt his jaw start loosen, the knot in his chest slowly unravelling... 

Without fail, though, the flashes started almost as soon as his heart seemed to slow down: 

_The stag that followed him always, through his waking and his dreaming, strode with purpose into Hannibal’s sitting room, and stared at him. Seemingly into him. Into the very darkest, hidden-away pieces of him that sang out when he stepped into someone else’s design while still in his own awkward, bloodthirsty skin. And in the stag’s eyes, Will saw an image of himself covered head to toe in blood, holding a knife, and relishing in it. Having someone else’s life painted onto him, dripping off of him, made him feel... indescribable. Liberated. Invincible. Like he had risen up to meet his destiny. The corpse at his feet, the river of blood he had brought forth, the sights, sounds, smells of death manifested at his hand... it was all because of him. And in this image, his body became one with the light._

_Everything whited out, then, only to reveal..._

_Abigail standing before him, and he before her. A terrified expression etched itself onto her face as she looked at him, while he could only look back at her with surprise and shock. In her hands she held a hunting knife, its blade buried deep into his stomach, shredding him to ribbons as the sickening sounds of tearing flesh filled his ears. This was her design: Gutting him out of instinct and fear. Her words from earlier that day now a deafening echo surrounding them as she spoke without speaking: “Just because you killed my dad doesn’t mean you get to be him.” He let out a strangled sob, and begged her to stop. Her face shifted, then: Seeing liquid pain pour out of him in time to his panicked, racing heart caused a hideous smirk to twist her mouth - a poisonous arrow to his heart. His knees gave out suddenly, entrails spilling out onto the floor. And as Will bled out at her feet, the world began to fade..._

_Fade..._

_It faded into the warm, dim lighting of Dr. Lecter’s office. They both stood at the window, looking out into the darkness. Hannibal’s hand came home to rest on Will’s shoulder, and the doctor turned Will so they faced each other. Hannibal gazed intently into Will’s eyes, not searching for something, but imparting something - the weight and depth of which was thrilling, overwhelming... too much for one person to hold. And yet, Hannibal was convinced otherwise, and held firm. Will felt torn between being anchored by Hannibal’s touch and wanting to run at the intensity behind his eyes. As if sensing this, Hannibal broke eye contact and leaned in close to Will, his breath ghosting along Will’s neck, sending sparks along Will’s skin. Will welcomed his touch. There was no judgment or expectation in Hannibal’s arms. He felt safe. Safe. Something he had not felt in years. Not completely. With that thought, and with no other ceremony, Hannibal sank his teeth into Will’s neck - a vampire feasting upon his prey. Will leaned into the pleasure-pain of his skin giving way, knowing full well what it would mean; he felt the world drifting away beneath his feet, while everything in his line of sight came into greater and sharper focus. Helpless to do anything but let it happen, Will allowed Hannibal to consume him._

Will’s eyes snapped open as he jerked awake, hands flying instantly to his neck in an attempt to staunch the blood flowing from his jugular vein. When he pulled his hands away and saw no blood, only a slippery film of sweat, he closed his eyes tightly and opened them again, unable to trust what he was seeing. The last vision of Hannibal draining Will’s life, and Will’s inability - his _unwillingness,_ a hissing voice inside him insisted - to stop it from happening had hot, dark tendrils curling around his belly that robbed him of sense, making those images feel somehow more real than sitting in Hannibal’s living room did at that very moment. He looked around wildly, searching desperately for evidence to convince himself he was awake as his whole body started to tremble. 

_Thump-clack. Thump-clack, thump-clack, thump-clack._

Will twisted in his chair, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. The unmistakable sound of hooves on polished wood were headed straight for him, and Will’s lips parted on a silent gasp; the stag was here. Will didn’t want to look into the stag’s eyes again. He had felt so free and alive in the aftermath of killing someone, and he couldn’t bear the thought of experiencing it again. He was still riding out the aftershocks of it, and every muscle in his body tightened in nausea and revulsion. He railed against the idea that he was, at heart, a killer, too. Like Garrett Jacob Hobbs. Like the Chesapeake Ripper. He clung to his diagnosis of pure empathy with white knuckles, rejecting the hypothesis others foisted onto him - that the only reason he could step into someone else’s design was because his own was simply waiting to reveal itself. A macabre unfolding yet to be fulfilled. Because, in truth, his greatest fear was that everyone’s assumptions were correct: That the monsters he hunted were his kindred spirits. That he, like them, felt at the core of his being a yearning for blood and death, power and destruction, that he had denied and buried for too long. That he would not find peace until he, too, submitted to those desires.

Breath coming shallow and quick, Will licked his lips, racking his brain on how to talk himself down from the panic rearing up inside his chest cavity. He saw it clearly in his mind’s eye: The stag no longer in the hallway of Hannibal’s home, but trapped inside the cage of his ribs, ready to charge, ready to fight its way out from behind bone and cartilage and musculature blocking its way. 

Will felt the divorce of himself from his body as it began, experiencing sensations in limbs that were suddenly separate from the whole of himself. 

His heart throwing itself against his sternum - _let me out let me out let me out._

Beads of sweat slithering down the length of his spine. 

The nails of his fingers biting into the palms of his hands. 

His voice coming out in a useless rasp.

What was happening to him?

 The answer was so obvious and came so quickly he felt the force of it hit him hard in his solar plexus: He was unstable. 

He was unstable. 

He was unstable.

He was a defective human being. 

He was _unstable._

Looking down at his hands, he forcibly straightened and flexed them several times, desperate to ease the tension that hummed his body electric. 

He removed his glasses and swiped along the slick, superheated skin along his brow ridge with the back of his wrist.

He knew he needed to stop his chest from rising and falling so rapidly, that he needed to slow his breathing. 

If he could only slow his breathing. 

If only he could _control_ his breathing.

He couldn’t control his breathing.

He couldn’t control his breathing.

He couldn’t even control his breathing.

He couldn’t even control his _breathing._

He was unstable.

He was unstable.

He was unstable.

He was a defective human being.

He was a defective human being.

He wasn’t a human being at all.

He was a killer.

He was a killer.

He was a monster.

He was unstable.

The migraine starting up behind his left eye was going to swallow his sanity.

He was going to die. 

He was going to die in this room.

He scrubbed his hands furiously against his thighs; he had to hide the blood staining his skin.

 He had to hide. 

He had to hide.

He was going to die.

He was going to die.

He was going to die.

 _“Will.”_

A deep, concerned voice came from behind him, over his left shoulder, cutting through and silencing the relentlessly cruel one inside his head; a familiar hand cupped his shoulder.

Pulling violently away from the touch as though burned, Will fell off his armchair and onto the floor in a near-hyperventilating heap. “Stop,” he croaked, blinking the sweat out of his eyes as he attempted to support himself on all fours. “Don’t... I can’t... breathe... with you touching me.”

Distantly, he heard the flutter of Abigail’s voice from the other side of the room, confused and worried beats of a bird’s wings. “What’s going on?”

“Abigail.” Hannibal was stern, but not angry. Firm. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw her feet retreat back into the hall, and a wave of longing pulled at his already tightly coiled gut. Not longing, exactly; words failed him. It was something he was unable to define. When Abigail entered his thoughts, it often caused a deep ache that resonated inside his bones because he could not... _do_ something. Protect her, comfort her, provide for her. But it wasn’t just that; it was all of that and so much more. It was... a tangled ball of barbed wire and fishing line cutting into his soft underbelly, exposing him for the fraud he was in the eyes of so many, including Abigail herself: The stranger who felt some twisted sense of obligation because he murdered her father.

“Will.” Softer, now. Warm. Kind. Hannibal crouched down onto the floor. 

Sinuses burning, lungs burning, Will shook his head, “I can’t...”

“You can’t what, Will?”

Skin tightening, anxiety seeping out of his pores, Will choked out, “I can’t breathe.” Looking up, Will’s eyes fell upon the Windsor knot at the base of Hannibal’s throat. Something solid and safe to focus on; he could easily slip pieces of himself inside the delicate folds of silk and satin. “I can’t breathe.”

“Are you experiencing chest pain? Numbness or pressure in your arms?”

“Ah...” Will panted, taking a moment to assess what was happening to his body, “M-my arms are fine, but... it... it feels like someone’s standing on my chest.”

Hannibal hummed in acknowledgement. “Have you experienced panic attacks before, Will?”

Will’s eyes leapt from Hannibal’s tie to his left cheekbone, surprised. He shouldn’t have been: Hannibal was a medical doctor before becoming a psychiatrist, and even psychiatrists needed to have sufficient medical training to be well-versed in physical manifestations stemming from mental illness. (He felt he might vomit as the words _Mental Illness_ sliced into his brain with the red-hot edge of an unseen knife.) “Maybe,” he started, before immediately amending his answer: “Yes.”

“Can you describe what brought this one on?”

Will’s muscles started to cramp from remaining tensed so long, and he hung his head, desperate to escape his weak, pathetic body; his arms wouldn’t hold his weight for much longer. Gasping for breath, he arched his back, spine ready to shatter.

“We need to regain control of your breathing, Will. I’m going to ask you to breathe with me, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Can you do that?”

Will closed his eyes, jaw starting to lock up from his teeth grinding together. He felt only shame at the knowledge Dr. Lecter was looking at him, watching this happen. Bearing witness to his utter inability to be human. But... he was offering to help Will. Wanted to help him. Truly. Will could hear it. And at this moment, the doctor was the only person Will trusted to help him. So he nodded in response to Hannibal’s question.

“Right. Together on the count of three. One. Two. Three. Breathe in.”

And they did. 

Will’s chest muscles stretched as he took in as much air as possible, pulling his shoulders back as he did so, feeling oxygen settle into the neglected far corners of his lungs; the floor lurched beneath him and the world tilted sharply on its axis. 

“And breathe out.”

They did. 

He did.

Out and out and out until he was certain he exhaled nearly every atom of oxygen from the withered, prune-like organs inside his chest. Convinced his sternum would crack under the concave pressure he forced upon himself and tried not to welcome it. But, instead - impossibly - the world righted itself again. Dr. Lecter’s sitting room was simply that, and not the dark, cavernous place where he had felt death closing in on him; the space he and Hannibal occupied together, now, was small, contained, and silent. Four simple walls sliding back into place, into what reality felt like.

“Very good, Will. Again: Breathe in.”

In.

And out.

In.

And out.

In. 

And out. 

Hannibal and Will breathed together for what must have been hours. Though, in truth, Will could not determine how long the process took in real time; there was no time. (He would wonder, later, if time really was lost to him - if it made up its own rules now that he moved through it in a nonlinear fugue state.) On an out breath, Will noticed his heart rate had slowed, returning to something like normal. So he opened his eyes on his next inhale and chanced a look up into Hannibal’s face. 

The doctor’s eyes were closed as his chest and diaphragm expanded, taking in a full, deep breath.

Will’s abdomen constricted suddenly at the sight, unable to pick apart the complex ball of emotion lodging itself against his soft palette near the back of his throat, where it sat heavy and amorphous. Exhausted, he decided he was wholly incapable of analyzing it further, except to say that it was there, and that was all.

Will leaned back and settled his legs underneath himself, incredibly sore, his body slipping into a familiar hunched sitting position, wanting so much to protect itself from what it had just gone through. And for a collection of long moments, Will did absolutely nothing but allow himself to rest, which felt like more than enough. 

Hannibal’s eyes opened slowly, his face expressionless. A fractional relaxation of the muscles around his jaw, perhaps, at seeing Will outwardly calm, if somewhat dazed and detached.

They sat in silence.

After a while, Will’s mind started to wander, and he picked at an imaginary stray thread on the inseam of his pants. He sighed, noting that he probably looked like a disheveled, sweaty, sorry mess. His terrible posture didn’t help. He half-wondered if Hannibal might comment on it. Almost wished he would. (But no. Not really.) 

Clearing his throat, suddenly self-conscious and painfully aware the silence they sat in felt no longer comfortable, but awkward, Will reached for his glasses where they lay abandoned near Dr. Lecter’s leg. Before Will could grab them, though, Hannibal plucked them off the ground and extended them to him without a word. A quick, embarrassed flash of teeth, and Will accepted them, sliding them back onto his face and offering a quiet, “Thank you.”

Hannibal inclined his head.

A soft chime filtered in from down the hall - a gentle reminder of the world that existed outside the trappings of Will Graham’s mind.

“I saw...” Will began, then cut himself off. That was wrong. It was in his head, not in this room. “I had a...”

“Hallucination?” 

_“No_ ," Will answered curtly, dismissing what felt like an accusation. _Have you finally gone completely insane?_ But Dr. Lecter would never say that to him. Sighing, utterly drained, he scrubbed a hand over his face and tried again, softer: “No.”

“A dream?”

He didn’t know if that was worse. He wasn’t _sleeping._ These were images that... broke into his thoughts. Highjacked his consciousness. They were not equal things in this conversation or syllogism. Tongue running along the backs of his teeth, Will finally ground out the word, _“Flashes_ ," when he felt he was able to open his mouth without screaming.

“Flashes,” Hannibal repeated evenly, no inflection in his voice.

“Flashes,” Will agreed in one breath, explaining nothing else. Harsh consonants toppling over the edge of a cliff, leaving tense space filled with unanswered questions for Hannibal to decipher.

“But,” Dr. Lecter prompted.

“But,” Will continued, feeling exposed, skin flayed and held open to reveal his bloody insides as though the subject of an autopsy. “They... felt so real. Like... experiencing memories that never happened. Living them for the first time. But... not really. I was... inside my head, yes. But... I was not here. I was... taken somewhere...” There was a moment, as he spoke, where he had the distinct feeling of floating above his body, looking down on himself, and listening to the words coming out of his mouth. Absolutely nonsensical words he heard with ears that were not his own, but belonging to Alana Bloom who had looked up at him with such sad eyes and said he was unstable. 

Suddenly, a single tear he hadn’t known was welling up slipped down the side of his face, and Will lifted his eyes to the man sitting across from him, the manic smile that failed to hide how terrified he was revealing itself. “I’m losing my mind.”

“No,” came the fervent reply. 

Before Will had a chance to respond or deny him, Hannibal reached out and placed his hands on either side of Will’s face and made direct eye contact. 

The bones in Will’s limbs seemed to liquefy in a mixture of fear, anticipation, and an awakening appetite for something he desperately tried to repress, for it had no title, no name, and it threatened to drown him in this moment. He was at a total loss for how to react to what was happening.

So he didn’t. 

He let Hannibal touch him; he let Hannibal look. And he said nothing.

And as the silence stretched thick between them, the fear began to slowly ebb away.

“Listen to me, Will: You are here. You exist. You are breathing. You are honest and good. You are breathing. You exist. You are here. And you are not alone.” 

Hannibal’s words were measured and sure. Spaced evenly and delivered with delicate precision. He spoke with such honest passion... it stole the breath from between Will’s lips. 

Each phrase slipped itself further and further under Will’s skin until they seeped into his blood, and his veins sang simultaneously in both gratitude and grief. For Hannibal’s words, though kind - so incredibly kind he was sure the doctor could feel his hunger for human connection searing hot against the places where their skin touched - they did not change facts. They did not change the missing time, the anxiety, the nightmares, the panic attacks, the hallucinations... they did not change his instability or his empathy. He would continue to step into the minds of the wicked, and he would continue to be plagued by their demons until something - or someone - stopped him. 

But...

The beginnings of something began to stir inside his belly at Hannibal’s words: He was not alone. The fire behind Hannibal’s gaze assured him of it. And for how frail Will’s human shell might be, to feel held and seen by someone so completely was... indescribable. A rare gift Will was afraid to touch. 

Another tear slipped down Will’s cheek as he closed his eyes, reaching up with unsteady hands to curl his fingers around Hannibal’s wrists, holding him in place. Hoping it said everything he could not.

Hannibal brushed Will’s tears away with gentle swipes of his thumbs in answer.

Will inhaled deeply, trying to get his head above water again, to reach the calm he’d only just captured moments ago as his pulse began to race anew.

As he did this, Will missed the small lifting of Hannibal’s lips, the barest hints of a smile. 

Will exhaled until his lungs were empty.

Hannibal allowed his eyes to close.

They breathed together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. If you felt moved in any way, I would love hearing from you. 
> 
> For those interested, the title for this piece is a Czech word that has no English equivalent. Milan Kundera described the emotion as “...a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery.”


End file.
